Abstract

In confrontation with the current events of his time, Max Scheler develops his idea of a “new Europe”, which is to emerge from the ruins of the First World War in confrontation with “capitalist England” and through the awakening of a new religiosity. From the 1920s onwards, the idea of unity under Catholicism is overcome and raised to a higher level to a global and cosmopolitan level. Scheler speaks of a “cosmopolitanism” that needs to be learned and will ultimately entail a balancing process (Ausgleichsgeschehen). Scheler understands this Ausgleich and cosmopolitanism as an educational task (Bildungsaufgabe). According to Scheler, only in and through the education (Bildung) of persons towards this idea can national, cultural and religious one-sidedness be overcome. Scheler's new conception of knowledge and Bildung plays an essential role in this, culminating in the concept of the all-man (Allmensch), who, as a relative all-man, is to be both a model and a goal.